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Kieran Shudall (Circa Waves)

Artist

The Art of Songwriting

15:15 - 16:15

Saturday 10 November

Songwriting

The Cockpit Room

About Kieran Shudhall

We all know what happened with ‘Young Chasers’, the debut
album by Circa Waves, that arrived in March of last year hitting the top 10.
That it berthed four Radio 1 A-list singles, the most notable –and for a time
completely unavoidable – of which was ‘T-Shirt Weather’. That after its release
they seemed to rise very fast indeed, to the extent that a mere six months on,
the whole of a sold out Brixton Academy was jumping up and down as one, singing
every last line of its thirteen direct, propulsive, carefree, indie pop songs.
From the very first moment, it sounds like a different, louder band, and
showcases Kieran’s disenchantment with the world he sees, with more in common
with Foo Fighters or even Nirvana than with, say, The Strokes. It is very much
not the sound of a band giving people more of what they know that people want
from them. In every respect, it is the sound of a band who are going with their
hearts, changing up because they have to, taking a risk and moving forward.

The route of this fairly radical change in direction came,
Kieran says, as “a natural reaction to touring those indie songs for a year and
a half.” Both he and the band, having gone hell for leather in support of their
breakthrough, were burnt out. There was less and less talking as the touring
went on and on. And as a consequence their singer, songwriter and leader was
starting to find himself contemplating things a lot more.

The big breakthrough came back home in Liverpool where, in
his house at the start of the year, Kieran sat, on his own, for weeks, just
writing and writing and “losing my mind a little bit”. He started to feel
things things a long way from ‘T Shirt Weather pouring out of him.

The heavier sound, also, has brought a renewed excitement to
Circa Waves.